Smart Safety: Murder Rates By State

Do crime shows and podcasts leave you on edge? In spite of the wide availability of stories and news about violent crime, how likely are you to be murdered?

SafeWise looked at five years of FBI data to determine which states have the highest murder rates and which ones have the lowest murder rates. We then compared this to data from our State of Safety report to uncover a sharp divide between perception and reality when it comes to murder.

Here is a link to the full report: https://www.safewise.com/blog/murder-rates-by-state/

The good news is that the US reports lower murder rates than many other countries, especially if you live in one of these states: 

1. New Hampshire
2. Maine
3. Vermont
4. Hawaii
5. Minnesota

Each of these states reported a murder rate of less than half that of the national average of 4.9 homicides per 100,000 people. But, perceptions do not match these low rates with nearly 50% of individuals worrying about murder in their everyday lives. Perhaps our nation’s obsession with true crime has led us towards excessive paranoia. Perhaps we need to shift our focus from paranoia to prevention in order to lower our murder rates even further. 

Minnesota Specific Findings:

Minnesota boasts the 5th lowest murder rate compared to other states. This was 2.9 points the national average of 4.9 homicides per 100,000 individuals. 

I had a chance to learn more:

Why is there such a disconnect between concerns about murder and the actual murder rate?

That disconnect is really interesting—especially because murder rates have been going down consistently for decades. But I think there a couple of things that add to the level of fear or concern.

• The global 24/7 news cycle: I think the relentless onslaught of news coverage looking at things like mass shootings, family murder-suicides, and other awful things that add to a sense of fear and heightened awareness of crimes like murder. It used to be that I might hear about a murder that happened in my city or state—or something really big like Columbine, but it wasn't an everyday occurrence. Now I can just skim the headlines or land on MSN or Yahoo and see at least two murder-related headlines nearly every time. 
• True crime's obsession with the murders of young women: We found that the group most afraid of murder was young women, and when you look at the percentage of true crime podcasts or TV serials that focus on murders of young women, it's not hard to see why that population has a disproportionate fear—and not just from reality, but when compared to other groups.
• This one isn't new—I think our life and well-being (and that of our loved ones) are always the things we worry about the most. If you're quantifying concern or fear and "murder" is on the list, you're probably going to pick it as something that sits at the top of that list. I mean, getting in a car accident is also scary—and it happens more often—but it isn't always fatal. Because you can't survive murder, it's a pretty concerning thing.

How can people have a realistic sense of the risks?

I think balancing out the scary news and headlines with the real statistics about how often murder and other violent crimes actually happen can help create a more realistic sense of the true risk of murder. I admit it—I watch and read a TON of true crime stuff. But I see the same stories covered over and over again. That's another way to remember that it isn't so rampant that there's an unending supply of salacious stories to tell. 

What contributes to states that have lower rates?

It's so hard to draw a straight line from a cause to the effect of lower or higher murder rates. But one thing that seems consistent is that marginalized populations are at greater risk and experience more instances of murder. Whether it's related to poverty and education or race, religion, and sexual/gender identity—any community, city, or state with higher concentrations of a marginalized population is more likely to see more violent crime in general, and murder specifically.

Poverty and education—along with a state's overall economy—make the most consistent impact. A lack of resources and opportunity leads to more crime overall, and people who are involved with crime are more likely to involved in something that leads to murder. Those who don't need to turn to crime or interact in high-crime areas are more insulated from the risk of murder in general. 

Of course, there are innumerable exceptions, but if you're trying to draw a correlation, those are the things we see that make the most sense most of the time.